Halloween in my day was a simpler affair..you scrounged through your closets or boxes in the basement to come up with a costume. There was no such thing as spending money on a costume..so choices were somewhat limited. I went as a gypsy for years. Maybe it was just part of my natural internal calling to be a free spirit and somewhat mysterious, but honestly that was about as wild as you could be and get away with it back in those days. The standard gypsy costume was fairly simple.. a flowing skirt, belt, flowery blouse, bandanna for your hair, lots of bangles, and hoop earrings.

Other “classic” closet costumes were cowgirl..bandanna, jeans, boots and a hat; hobo ( I was going to say tramp, but that’s taken on a whole new Halloween meaning these days)…bandanna, stick, ripped pants and your Dad’s old suit coat; a giant baby..adult size blanket sleeper, hair in braids and a rattle; a mom….bathrobe, bandanna tied around some pink curlers (and Lord help you if you came home missing a curler); 50’s girl in a poodle skirt..bandanna to tie your hair back in a pony tail, bobby socks and a poodle skirt..this required that either you had an older sister who had a 50’s theme homecoming party, or your mom had a giant hunk of felt and she was willing to help you sew a poodle on it (luckily my mom was a seamstress AND an artist so my poodles looked more like an actual dog than the “lambs” my friends had on theirs); geisha girl..silk robe with Oriental pattern of some sort, and slippers..and not the best option if the weather was looking bad. Several options were out if you didn’t have a bandanna. And with my intense fear of clowns, that costume never ever hit my radar.

Somewhere along the line, my mom decided that chicken pot pies were her “go to meal” on Halloween. I think it was because she was working by then, and we were always chomping at the bit to get out into the streets to fill our pillow case with as much candy as possible. I always had to take my little brother along with us, but he was athletic and able to keep up..and he was a pretty cool little kid, even if he always fell down and spilled half his candy at some point in the night.

At some level, she had to know that the chicken in the pot pies was NOT real, and that they were packed with sodium, but I guess she figured that eating them once a year wouldn’t kill us. I loved the crust and would always eat the crust all the way around the edges first, then the top and then scoop out filling and save the bottom crust for last.

My Dad never allowed us to eat candy, so this was our own chance to get a stash of sweet stuff. Back in the day, kids could trick or treat without a lot of parental supervision..my mom still checked our candy/treats once we got home, searching for apples with razor blades, poison tainted popcorn balls or unwrapped pieces of candy. We’d have to remember which house gave us the popcorn balls in order to keep them. She was always excited to see lame Halloween treats like toothbrushes, pencils, or erasers. Then she would grill us about if we’d remembered our manners, telling us she better not hear otherwise from the neighbors.

It only seemed fitting that this year for Halloween, as the twins were getting dressed up for Halloween that we have Paleo Chicken Pot pie.